Intelligent design loses vote [Ohio]

AP via Akron Beacon-Journal ^ | 2/24/2006 | Carrie Spencer Ghose

[jennyp]

COLUMBUS - The Ohio school board voted Tuesday to eliminate a passage in the state's science standards that critics said opened the door to the teaching of intelligent design.

The Ohio Board of Education decided 11-4 to delete material encouraging students to seek evidence for and against evolution.

The 2002 science standards say students should be able to ``describe how scientists continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.'' It includes a disclaimer that the standards do not require the teaching of intelligent design.

The vote is the latest setback for the intelligent design movement, which holds that life is so complex, it must have been created by a higher authority.

In December, a federal judge barred the school system in Dover, Pa., from teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in high school biology classes. The judge said that intelligent design is religion masquerading as science and that teaching it alongside evolution violates the separation of church and state.

On Tuesday, the Ohio Board of Education directed a committee to study whether a replacement lesson is needed for the deleted material.

The vote was a reversal of a 9-8 decision a month ago to keep the lesson plan. But three board members who voted in January to keep the plan were absent Tuesday. Supporters of the plan pledged to force a new vote to return the material soon.

``We'll do this forever, I guess,'' said board member Michael Cochran, a Columbus lawyer and supporter of the lesson plan.

Board member Martha Wise, who pushed to eliminate the material, said the board took the correct action to avoid problems, including a possible lawsuit.

``It is deeply unfair to the children of this state to mislead them about science,'' said Wise, an elected board member representing northern Ohio.

In approving Wise's motion, the board rejected a competing plan to request a legal opinion from the attorney general on the constitutionality of the science standards.

The state's science lesson plan, approved in 2004, is optional for schools to use in teaching the state's science standards, which are the basis for Ohio's graduation test. Although schools are not required to teach the standards, districts that do not follow the standards put students at risk of not passing that part of the Ohio graduation test.

The Pennsylvania court decision against teaching intelligent design does not apply in Ohio, but critics of state standards say it invites a similar challenge.

Wise said other events since the ruling made removing the standards even more important. Earlier this month, for example, Gov. Bob Taft recommended a legal review of the standards.

In addition, members of a committee that advised state education officials on Ohio's science curriculum said the standards improperly single out the theory of evolution and could lead to the teaching of religion.

Board member Deborah Owens Fink, who voted against eliminating the lesson plan, said it is unfair to deny students the chance to use logic to question a scientific theory. She said scientists who oppose the material are worried that their views won't be supported.

``We respect diversity of opinion in every other arena,'' said Owens Fink, an elected board member from Akron.

[Rudder]

Birds and horses live in an alternate two-dimensional universe.

[Oztrich Boy]

Somebody didn't get past the headline.

No. jennyp understands what the phrase "encouraging students to seek evidence for and against evolution" is code for

[Oztrich Boy]

ID does NOT rely of faith, it begins with a young earth theory

Let's see you name one supporter of ID from a scientific position who endoses a Young Earth

[AmericaUnited]

The notion that the earth was flat was the position of religionists.

And like the ignorant/illiterate 'earth is flat' people of centuries ago, YOU keep repeating nonsense that has been totally refuted.

The myth that Christians in the Middle Ages thought the world was flat was given a massive boost by Andrew Dickson White's weighty tome The Warfare of Science with Theology. This book has become something of a running joke among historians of science and it is dutifully mentioned as a prime example of misinformation in the preface of most modern works on science and religion. The flat Earth is discussed in chapter 2 and one can almost sense White's confusion that hardly any of the sources support his hypothesis that Christians widely believed in it. He finds himself grudgingly admitting that Clement, Origen, Ambrose, Augustine, Isodore, Albertus Magnus and Aquinas all accepted the Earth was a globe - in other words none of the great doctors of the church had considered the matter in doubt. Although an analysis of what White actually says suggests he was aware that the flat Earth was largely a myth, he certainly gives an impression of ignorant Christians suppressing rational knowledge of its real shape.

[moatilliatta]

And one-eyed people.

[Oztrich Boy]

I don't tag sarcasm either.

But be warned. The Christianist IDjers are going to assume you are one of them

[peyton randolph]

Well, you are at odds with 99.9% of all reports and studies on the subject.

Feel free to link to those reports. I'd like to read them...assuming they're not spin created by whacko cults that promote home schooling.

[Rudder]

"The long association between Christianity and the flat-earth theory begins in the sixth century when a Greek monk of Alexandria, Cosmas, who had traveled widely in the East, retired to a cloister in Sinai and wrote his Christian Topography. In it he refuted the 'false and heathen' notion that the earth is a sphere, and showed that it is really a rectangular plane arched over by the firmament which separates us from heaven. The inhabited earth, with Jerusalem at its hub, is at the centre of the plane, and it is surrounded by oceans beyond which lies Adam's paradise. The sun revolves round a north polar mountain, circling its peak in summer and its base in winter. Christian Topography was well received by the Church, whose policy at the time was to eradicate all previous knowledge and establish itself as the sole authority in religion, philosophy and science. The flat-earth theory, hitched on to the geocentric cosmology of Ptolemy, prevailed among clergymen (if not among navigators) until the sixteenth century, when Copernicus called it into question by venturing the idea that the earth is a planet orbiting the sun. He was not very assertive. The preface to his book emphasized that the heliocentric system was merely a hypothesis, and Copernicus avoided controversy with the reviewers by dying on the day it was published."

I'm glad to learn that, with the help of Copernicus, the Church eventually rejected the flat earth concept.

[Snowbelt Man]

You must not know many home schooled kids. I have five kids, four of whom either went to or are going to public schools. I know dozens of home schooled kids. The home schooled kids social skills and their ability to hold a conversation without all the ya know, dude, like, and peer pressure baloney that comes from having to constantly perform for the approval of kids your own age is far superior to 95% of the public schooled kids that I come across. Were it not for athletics - in which home schooled kids are not allowed to participate even though their parents pay for them - my kids would not be in the public schools. The other day, the head of the English Department told my 12th grade daughter's class to go to moveon.org if they wanted to know "what was going on." They are reading "1984" and supposedly Bush's NSA spying program epitomizes what Orwell was talking about. Last night, at a basketball game, I sat and listened (and then spoke up) as a group of teachers and administrators were yukking it up about Chaney's hunting accident.

By the way, every homeschooled kid that I know has excelled as an adult. Many that I know have started their own businesses or gone on to college and excelled and then become great employess or successful business people.

Our public school is rated as one of the top public schools in the state of Ohio. I coach a number of sports there so I am exposed to teachers, administrators and students all the time. The public schools, even the good ones, are failing and if the parochial schools in your community are inferior to the public schools, they must be pathetic. I would have to see it to believe it.

By the way, I have no doubt that these teachers and administrators that I'm talking about are evolutionists and wholeheartedly support the Democratic candidates in every race - from dog catcher to President.

[peyton randolph]

Intellient Design. This movement has more support than you realize in thousands of circles. It will grow and grow and grow.

"We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don’t understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is." FSM.

[RogueIsland]

You, my friend, are extremely uninformed and ignorant and know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the subject of evolution.

He's a Creationist. Why would you expect anything else?

[RogueIsland]

The Intelligient Design movement is hear to stay. It is backed up with great science.

Funniest. Post. Ever.

[peyton randolph]

Your experience in one Ohio community cannot be extrapolated as the norm for the rest of the country.

[bvw]

Hooray! Dover PA and Ohio .... on the Leading Edge of American Science! Yessiree yoohpee! Nee How!

[Junior]

Really? Perhaps you'd like to show me the error of my ways instead of just calling me illiterate? Eratosthenes worked out the size and shape of the Earth two centuries B.C. Some early Christian writers considered the Earth to be round, but many argued for its flatness. Hint, read the whole of the second article. Any quote mining on your part is going to be exposed rapidly.

[Junior]

See post 75. I included links just for your benefit.

[AmericaUnited]

Perhaps you'd like to show me the error of my ways instead of just calling me illiterate?

I did post detailed information. Were you able to read it?

[Snowbelt Man]

No but my experience is the exact opposite of your claim. How many home schooled kids do you actually know? Based on your previous comment, I doubt that you know any.

The public schools are a huge failure - in almost every way that is measurable. They spend too much money, they produce sub par students, they indoctrinate a definite socio-political and economic viewpoint. They are a major reason that the Democrats - who have no ideas - can still win elections in this country. My daughter's U.S. history text book has more pages dedicated to Woodstock than to the Constitution. The same textbooks are used by public schools all over the nation. Without the NEA and their daily indoctrination of the youth of America, the Democratic party as we now know it would either have to change dramatically or cease to exist.

I don't know one homeschooled kid who lacks the social skills to excel as an adult and I know many home schooled kids. I doubt that you can say the same.

[Junior]

People see visions of the Virgin Mary, and have face-to-faces with aliens from Zeta Reticuli. Fortean Times devotes a small section every month to odd images found in nature (faces in a tree or rock, for instance). Your claiming that design is readily apparent does not make it so. This is what separates science from faith -- the former can be tested and is not accepted on just "common knowledge."

[Junior]

ID is not even the MOST LIKELY scenario, because you are still dealing with NEGATIVE evidence. ID is basically are argument from astonishment.